In the 1982 case of Missouri v. Hunter, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state can impose multiple punishments for the same act if it is clear that was what its legislature intended, without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. The case involved Larry Gene Hunter who had been convicted in Missouri for both armed robbery and use of a firearm during a felony based on one criminal act - an armed robbery with a shotgun. He argued this constituted double jeopardy as he was being punished twice for essentially one crime but his appeal was rejected by Missouri's courts. The Supreme Court affirmed these decisions stating that where there are two statutory offenses, which require proof of different elements, they may be punished cumulatively under separate statutes without offending constitutional protections against double jeopardy.

In the dissenting opinion for Missouri v. Hunter, Justice Stevens argued that the court's decision to allow cumulative punishments for a single crime violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. He contended that if two statutes punish identical conduct under different names, then imposing multiple punishments is unconstitutional unless Congress clearly intended it. In this case, he believed there was no clear evidence of such intent from Missouri’s legislature and thus disagreed with majority's interpretation which allowed double punishment based on legislative intent alone. Furthermore, he criticized the majority's reliance on an 1852 precedent (Blockburger v United States), arguing its application in this context was inappropriate as it did not consider modern principles of statutory construction or recent developments in double jeopardy jurisprudence.